Music’s Been Ruined by Dating was an intimate piece for four audience members at a time, staged in a tent made of bedsheets.  Each of the audience members sat in the tent with me and was given a CD, with a man’s name on it and a list of songs.  I explained that these 4 CDs were my four past relationships, and each CD contained all of the songs that had been ruined by that particular relationship.  I went on to address each of the audience members as though they were whichever ex-boyfriend’s CD they were holding, and then I asked them to choose one of the songs so that the five of us could listen to it together, and so that I could explain why they had ruined that particular song for me, thus reclaiming the music.

Music’s Been Ruined by Dating was developed at Forest Fringe in Edinburgh in 2008, and shown at BAC and  the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

I went on to make several intimate shows between 2008 and 2010 that are not featured on this website, but the conceptual simplicity, personal nature and unusual form of Music’s Been Ruined by Dating  made it a watershed moment in my artistic practice – much like the relationships that inspired the piece – it helped make me who I am today.